MCC Canner

Each year the MCC Meat Canner is in Henderson for a week.  During this time many volunteers come together to can 29,000 pounds of turkey making 16,000 can for those in need.  Each year a portion of the canned turkey stays in Nebraska, while the majority of the boxes are sent across the world.

This year Mike and I washed cans during the evening hours, so that is the main part of the process that I captured in pictures, but the process starts long before that when the turkey is actually ground in the church fellowship hall.  Then the meat is taken on to the canner truck where it goes through the canning process.

Once the meat is canned, volunteers (of all ages) take the cans from each batch out of the metals crates and line them up to be washed.  

Each batch has nearly 100 cans, which keeps 20 people busy getting them ready to be boxed before the next batch is done.   

 Four people wash cans, two people rinse cans and two-four people dry cans, 

 which means many hands are in the sink at the same time. 

 When the cans are dried, the expiration date is added. 

The cans are moved to the labelers. 

Labels are added.

Then the cans are boxed. 

16,000 cans equals a large number of boxes 

After all that work there is some time to relax between batches. 

 But it never lasts long because the next batch of cans is always close behind.